


pull your little arrows out

by nowrunalong



Series: soulmate verse [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Post-Episode: s02e13 Doomsday, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 19:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8765443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowrunalong/pseuds/nowrunalong
Summary: Sometimes you can’t be with your soulmate, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. It doesn’t mean you can’t fall in love.





	

“Rose,” Jackie’s voice crackles through the phone, “Are you busy later?”

The question makes Rose frown immediately: she doesn’t know what Jackie’s going to ask, but she’s positive she doesn’t want to do it. Blind dates? New hobbies? She can only turn down memberships for hot yoga studios and art classes for so long before she starts to dodge the subject entirely, ignoring messages and letting her mother’s calls go to voicemail. She perches on the side of her desk, wary. “You know what I’m doing later, Mum.”

Jackie sighs. “You need to do some other things, sweetheart. You’re spendin’ all your time cooped up in that building.” She must sense that Rose is about to argue or hang up because she presses on with barely a pause. “Look, I need you to visit Tony’s school later. It’s parent-teacher night and your dad’s got a last-minute meeting with the Department of Defence.”

“Why can’t you go?”

“I offered to host dinner.”

Of course she offered to host dinner.

“Mum,” Rose says, her voice verging on a desperate whine. “I can’t. What if…” _What if there’s a breakthrough in the project tonight and I'm not here to see it? What if, after all these months—years, even—it finally starts to work?_ “Do we need to meet his teacher?” she asks, changing track. She can talk about the Dimension Cannon til she’s blue in the face, but it won't shift Jackie even an inch. “Tony’s grades are fine. What’s his teacher gonna say? ‘Hurrah, good job, you raised a kid who always eats his carrots and keeps quiet during nap time?’”

“Rose, this is serious. It’s his first year of primary school and we don’t know what he’s like when he leaves the house, do we? It won’t take very long. You can get back to your Torchwood thing right after the meeting, if you have to. Heaven knows you probably sleep there—I don’t know the last time I saw you come home for a proper meal.”

“Fine!” Rose throws up her free hand, exasperated but too tired to put up a fight today. “Fine. I’ll go. What time am I s’posed to be there?” 

“Well, there’s a reception in the lobby at six o’clock. They’ll have punch and snacks and you can talk to the other parents. I reckon that’d be good for you, talking about something else for a change…”

“Mum—”

“And the meeting is at seven-twenty,” Jackie continues. “The paper said Room 204, but they’ll have the numbers posted up in the lobby, in case you forget.”

Rose grabs a pen and scribbles down the number on the back of a cafe receipt; she’s not going anywhere near the reception if she doesn’t have to. “I won’t forget.”

Jackie’s tone softens. “Thank you, sweetheart. This means a lot to me and your dad.”

“‘Course,” mumbles Rose, her mind already drifting to other, more pressing things. Absentmindedly, she traces the fading black letters on her wrist with an index finger.

‘ _RUN_.’

—

Rose takes the bus, because she can. She gives herself a bit of leeway in case it comes late, but it doesn’t, so she’s here early.

Standing outside Coal Hill School and not wanting in the least to go inside, Rose hugs herself against the chilly autumn wind. She pauses for a moment by the front door, but wanders off to the side of the building before she’s forced to make small talk with other visitors. There’s a playground around the side; Rose sits down in one of the swings and pushes herself, letting her toes drag deep ridges through the sand.

Minutes pass and Rose lets her eyes fall shut, focusing on the motion of the swing. _Soaring up… Falling down. Soaring up… Falling down_. She should check her phone to make sure she’s still on time, but she’s enjoying this mindlessness. It’s become harder and harder to go about the day-to-day activities that constitute a “normal life”. The longer Rose can remain outside of that, the better.

 _Soaring up… Falling down. Soaring up… Falling down_.

“Are you lonely?”

The question snaps Rose out of her reverie and she opens her eyes, pushing her feet hard into the ground to catch herself and stop the swing. She tries to shape her mouth into a smile.

“Why would I be lonely?”

The asker of the question seems to interpret this to mean that Rose might like some company, because she sits down in the swing beside her. Rose looks away, fixing the sand beneath her feet with a blank stare; she wants to dig deeper.

“You look sad.”

Rose glances at the asker now, defensive rebukes and meaningless assurances (she isn’t sure yet which is going to tumble out of her) faltering in her throat when she meets the woman’s eye. Her smile is friendly and open: it’s the kind of face that’s hard to lie to. Rose looks back at the ground and buries the toes of her shoes in the sand. “No… ‘m fine,” she says lightly. Deciding to elaborate a little, she adds: “My mum sent me to meet my little brother’s teacher, ‘cause she couldn’t make it. Last minute thing. I just didn’t expect to be here, is all. Maybe I’m feeling a little… I dunno. Disoriented.”

“Like you should be somewhere else?”

“Yeah.” Rose frowns. “Yeah, exactly.”

“I get that,” the woman says knowingly.

“So, are you here for the meeting thing, too?” Rose asks, because she doesn’t want to delve into complicated topics right here and now in the middle of a children’s playground with a complete stranger.

“Yeah, I’m just taking a little break. Just, you know… Getting some fresh air. Should really be getting back inside, though.” The woman checks her watch, and Rose cranes her head a little to see the time: it’s quarter past seven.

“Me too. My thing’s in five minutes.”

“Right, then. Don’t want to be late.”

The woman hops off her swing, and Rose follows suit.

“I left the side door open,” she tells Rose, as she walks off in the direction of the building. She spins around to fix Rose with an expectant grin, hair fanning across her face in the breeze as she adds, “You coming?”

Rose hurries after her and through the door, relieved to avoid the reception altogether.

“I’m going to classroom 204,” she tells the woman, as they stroll through the hall together. “Do you know where that is?”

“204? Why didn’t you say so before?” The woman stops dead in her tracks and holds out her hand with an even larger smile. “I’m Clara Oswald. 204 is my room. You must be…” She tilts her head slightly, evaluating Rose for a second. “Tony’s sister.”

Rose takes Clara’s proffered hand automatically and shakes it, a bit dumbfounded. “Yeah, that’s right. You’re… Tony’s teacher?” Realizing she hasn’t actually introduced herself, she adds hastily: “I’m Rose. Rose Tyler.”

“Of course you are. Should’ve seen it right away, really: that family resemblance.” Clara starts off through the hall again, and Rose rushes to keep pace with her. “It’s not always wise to assume things, but he’s drawn your family loads of times. Figured you must be the yellow-haired girl.”

“Tony draws his family?” Rose asks, as she follows Clara up the stairs to the second floor.

“You haven’t seen?”

“No, I…” _Haven’t been around much, lately_. Rose shifts uncomfortably. “D’you have one I could look at?”

“There’s a board up in the classroom. The students display their favourite drawings there.”

Rose makes a beeline for the board when they reach Room 204. It doesn’t take her long to locate Tony’s art: a family of four, three with yellow hair and one scribbled in with a goldenrod sort of colour. But… _hang on_ , she thinks. _Is that a fifth person?_ There’s definitely a hand there, but part of the page is covered up by a green crayon drawing of a dinosaur. Gently, Rose tugs the corner of Tony’s drawing forward so that she can see it.

“Oh my _God_.”

Rose covers her mouth.

“What is it?”

At Rose’s responding silence, Clara joins her in front of the board and touches her lightly on the arm. “Rose?”

“I… I can’t be here,” Rose says suddenly. “I’m sorry for—for wastin’ your time. I just… I’ve got to go.” She shakes her head, trying to reassemble her thoughts. “I think… My mum would like to talk to you. About Tony. There’s a thing… a—a party, or something. At our house. Next week. You should—you should come by.” Rose nods. “But you… oh, right. You’ll need…” She digs through her purse and finds a lightly crumpled invite. It had been sent to her at her office as a gentle reminder that her presence would be appreciated. Or something. She hands it to Clara, who accepts it with an indecipherable frown. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I’ve got to go.”

She rushes out the classroom door before Clara can respond.

—

It takes a remarkably long time for Clara to notice it.

When you haven’t met your soulmate, you pay more attention to the people around you. You notice whether or not they have a tattoo on their wrist. You wonder or not theirs is somewhere else that can’t be seen. What if they’re "the one"?

Clara pays attention because she likes people and because she’s just a little bit nosy, so she’d noticed Rose Tyler’s tattoo right away. Three letters: ‘ _RUN_.’ She’d also noticed the colour of the mark: black ink fading to a deep, lifeless gray. Rose had found her soulmate, and whomever they’d been had died.

The man in the drawing, maybe? How long ago had she met him? When had he died? Judging by the dead ink, Clara would guess it’s been at least a few years.

Truth be told, Clara doesn’t really _get_ the soulmate thing. It seems an awful lot like putting all your eggs in one basket. Bit rubbish for a concept, in her opinion. Of course, Nina had thought so too, back when they were dating—but _that_ had all changed when she’d met Nicole.

Clara lets out a breath and cranks the faucet on, letting the water run hot-but-not-quite-scalding for her bath. It’s been a long day. She needs a good lie-down in the tub with some scented candles and a Jane Austen novel.

She sets a candle on the side of the tub and grabs a match from the bathroom cabinet to light it. It’s nice, she thinks, that she receives so many candles as gifts from students; she hasn’t had to buy one in years. This cinnamon-nutmeg one is from last Christmas. She realizes she’s forgotten her book, but decides against running back to get it: she wants to enjoy the candlelight, and it’ll be too dark to read once she turns off the ceiling light. She flicks the switch.

Standing in her now-darkened bathroom, Clara unties her bathrobe and tosses it onto one of the hooks on the back of the door. She shifts to avoid the candle as she steps into the bath, and that’s when she sees the light, shimmering in the water.

It isn’t only the candle reflected on the rippling surface. There’s something else there, too, glowing gold. Clara looks down at the source of the light and sees the words shining bright and alive across her hip:

' _Why would I be lonely?_ ’

“Shit.”

Clara almost slips and breaks something in surprise, just barely managing to catch herself with a hand against the wall. She’s gotten so used to _not_ having this that it wasn’t ever something she’d really wanted, or needed. A rule, decreeing that one person above all others would be her perfect match. Clara can find her perfect match on her own, thank you very much.

 _If such a person even exists_.

Besides, this doesn’t make sense. These had been Rose Tyler’s first words to her, and Rose already has a soulmate. One that _isn’t_ Clara. _Someone up there screwed up_ , Clara thinks. _I’m not doing the unrequited thing again_.

Figures she’d get a broken tattoo the day it finally happened.

After collecting herself from her almost-fall, Clara lies back in the tub and tries to relax, like she’d planned to. Those ridiculous gold letters are distracting, though. Who decided they needed to be so bright?

More importantly, why is she being told that she belongs with a girl who is obviously in love with someone else?

 _Hello operator_ , Clara thinks. _Does the universe have a return policy? I’d like to send this one back_.

—

Rubbish or not, Clara still can’t come up with a good reason not to go to the Vitex party. Besides, they’re fundraising to raise money for the families of the victims of the Cybermen attacks. It’s a good cause. They’d all disappeared one day, never to be seen again, but they’d made a permanent mark on this world. Thousands had died, including Clara’s mother. Clara had always respected Pete Tyler for his continual prioritization of London’s affected citizens in the aftermath of the disaster, even years later. She may as well take this chance to talk with him.

At least, this is what she tells herself Friday night after school as she tries on one dress, and then another, and then another, until her whole wardrobe is piled on her bed in heaps and she still hasn’t got a clue what she wants to wear.

The complication, of course, is that Rose will be there.

Whether or not Clara wanted this or not, the fact is that she now has this conspicuous mark on her body. It’s a bit intrusive, really. Standing in front of her bedroom mirror in her undergarments, hand on hips, she frowns at the golden words.

She supposes that as far as words go, they could be worse. She’d seen several generic ‘hello's, for example. As if that would clarify anything for anyone. 

' _Why would I be lonely?_ ’

Clara thinks she would have answered the same way, but she’s not sure that either of them are being honest.

—

Feeling paranoid, Clara covers the tattoo in bandages, gauze taped over her hip underneath her clothing like she’s been doing all week. She doesn’t want to risk anyone noticing. Particularly not Rose. Clara may not need this distraction, but she’s positive that Rose needs it even less.

—

Clara turns up at the Tyler mansion in a purple suit and a tie. Heels. Loose hair. Casually fancy. It’s a good look; she hopes it’ll suit the atmosphere of the event. She’s normally very good at this type of thing, but she’s overthinking today. She'd lost her certainty a few exits back and is currently barreling down the one-way street of Second-Guessing.

(Maybe she should have worn a nice dress?)

She presents her invite to the bouncer (are they called bouncers at this type of thing?) and enters into the Tyler home’s spacious two-story front hall.

The mansion is teeming with London’s best-dressed citizens. London’s wealthiest. London’s most important. London’s most powerful.

And Clara Oswald, schoolteacher.

Clara nabs some champagne from a passing waiter and wades through the sea of people in the main hall, scanning the crowd for a familiar face with whom to strike up a conversation.

She takes in the building at the same time. There are some paintings on the walls. No oversized portraits of family members, though, the way that families that have been rich for generations always do. These walls feel more earnest, somehow. Less pretentious. Some landscapes. A couple architectural drawings. (Is that a blueprint for Torchwood Tower?) A large abstract piece with gashes of black and white and red paint. Clara likes that one: it’s something different altogether, and she wonders if Rose had picked it out.

There are no family pictures, either. There isn’t anything that immediately gives away anything personal about the family that lives here. Perhaps it had all been tidied away before the guests arrived. Events are hosted here frequently enough, though, that Clara doubts it ever has much time to gather much clutter.

She doesn’t know Rose very well at all, but all the same: it’s difficult to picture her growing up here.

Clara spots Jackie Tyler in the midst of several heavily-bejewelled women and it suddenly occurs to her that this is probably a terrible time and place to have a personal conversation about her son’s education. Well, it’s not like Rose had really thought this through, is it? It had clearly been a split-second decision, inviting Clara here. Did she even tell her parents that Clara was going to be coming? And if she had, would it matter? They're probably too busy to care.

Another waiter swings by with a drink tray and Clara swaps her empty champagne glass for a rosé. She’s more of a red wine lady, but this will do. She takes a sip and savours the tingling feeling at the back of her throat as she swallows it—

—and almost chokes when someone taps her on the back. She spins around.

“Rose!”

“Sorry,” Rose says immediately. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I’m not startled. Look at me: this face is the picture of relaxation.”

“Okay,” Rose agrees, playing along. “And mine is the… picture of havin’ a good time.”

“You really don’t want to be here, do you?”

“I hate these parties.” Rose looks from side to side warily. “Shouldn’t say that if my mum is around, though. I hate arguin’ with her with about this stuff. Anyway,” she continues, looking up at Clara and smiling suddenly, “I’m glad you came. Sorry about last week. Something came up, you know… ’s kind of a long story.”

“I get that,” Clara says, and it’s this feeling she has now—the feeling of inexplicable _understanding_ —that’s been coming back to her all week whenever she remembers her golden letters. “It’s fine. Really, I wasn’t offended or anything.”

“Oh, good.”

They smile at each other—a quiet moment in the midst of all these people and all this noise.

Rose interrupts it.

“I think I see my mum heading to the kitchen.”

The ‘ _d’you wanna go over there?_ ’ is implied. Clara nods her agreement and follows Rose as she expertly picks her way around the other guests, politely dodging questions with the assertion that she’s stepping out for a moment and will be back shortly. In the kitchen, Rose introduces Clara to Jackie and then disappears out the back door, shoulders slumped, and mumbling something that sounds like “ _just gonna get some fresh air._ ”

The polite and assertive heiress is gone, replaced by the shell of a girl who has seen entirely too much.

—

Rose can’t take it.

Can’t take the fake smiling. Can’t take the forced conversations. Can’t take the smell of money coupled with a distinct lack of purpose. Most of these people do the bare minimum to help, and only give because it gets them… tax rebates, or… whatever the hell it is that gets rich people to give up their money. _Philanthropists, my arse_ , Rose thinks bitterly.

What does this cynicism say about who she is now? There was a time when she could see the best in anyone. In everyone. She’s become hard, and she’s not sure if she can ever go back.

God, she wants to go back.

Her old life was everything she could never even have dreamed of. She’d been given the chance to look at humanity and see greatness there. Not only that, but she’d been given the chance to see that same greatness in herself.

She can still see it, sometimes. But not always. Not lately.

Trapped here, Rose feels distinctly like a part of herself is missing. It’s cliché, she knows. ‘ _A part of herself._ ’ It’s what everyone says about their soulmate. She’s not sure how else to describe it, though. It really did feel like she and the Doctor had been interlocking pieces in the zillion-piece puzzle that is the universe. Tiny in the large scale of things, but undeniably linked.

The letters on her wrist had continued to glow for weeks after the walls had been sealed off, and she’d kept up the hope that she’d be able to get back.

It was after Bad Wolf Bay that the gold had turned to black, and it was every day after that that the ink had continued to fade. Dying, dying, dead.

She’d joined Torchwood sometime after that day—the worst day of her life—where she and a few others had eventually launched the Dimension Cannon project, adapting existing dimension-hopping technology to (theoretically) create a device that would launch the user to another dimension, and then snap them back to Torchwood after a pre-determined period of time.

It hadn’t worked yet, but Rose had never been one to give up easily.

_It will work. It’s GOT to work._

She can’t stand feeling so empty inside.

Sometimes she gets so frustrated that her mum can’t seem to understand her. Jackie, who had lost her soulmate years ago, and then found him again against all the odds. She’d been lonely for years after Pete had died; there had never been anyone else.

_How did she stand it?_

Pete doesn’t try to dissuade her, but Rose suspects that’s mostly got to do with him not wanting to assert authority over the girl who is technically-not-actually-his-daughter. He funds the Dimension Cannon project, though, despite Jackie’s occasional protests. Maybe he’s just trying to stay on her good side, but Rose likes to think that he believes in her.

The Doctor had always believed in her.

She thinks about Tony’s drawing again and shivers, not because of the cold, but because his presence in the image was… uncanny. Tony had never met the Doctor, but Rose used to tell him stories about their travels. She’d had one picture of him, from Christmas dinner after that whole thing with Harriet Jones and the Sycorax. She’d given it to Tony to keep because he’d liked it.

Even her baby brother knows that the Doctor belongs with their family. Belongs with Rose.

When she’s not working on the Cannon, the thought feels like a stab wound in her chest. A painful, gaping hole that can never be stitched back up again.

As the party carries on inside, cheerful yellow light emanating from the windows, Rose collapses onto the floor of the gazebo and begins to shake.

—

It’s Clara who finds her.

“Do you mind?” Clara asks, gesturing at the ground next to Rose. Her tone is gentle but cautious—seeking permission. Rose can’t bring herself to speak just yet, but manages to nod her head once. Clara settles down against the wall of the gazebo, leaving a few inches of space between them. “I didn’t see you come back in,” she says. “Thought I’d… dunno. Check on you.”

Rose pulls her legs up and hugs them, looking down at her knees. “Oh,” she says after a moment, because she feels like she should at least make a sound.

“Your mum’s really something,” Clara says conversationally, rather than letting the muffled sounds of the party drone on. “She told me all sorts of things after you left.”

“Oh?” Rose says, and then groans as she realizes the implication. _Things about me_.

“No, they were good things!” Clara assures her. “Or, well… Mostly good things. She thinks that Tony can learn a lot from you. From the things you’ve done. That everyone can.”

“She wouldn’t say that.”

“She thinks it.”

They’re both quiet for a moment.

“What do you know?” Rose asks. “About me?” The tabloids have narrated a dozen different versions of her life and her arrival here. She feels, though, as if Clara Oswald might be able to see through to the truth.

“I’m not sure,” Clara says. “Parallel universes, for starters. Most people say they’re a myth, but I think they’re real. Really real. I think the Cybermen disappeared into another world. I think that you and Jackie probably came from… the world they were sent to.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. Are they still…?”

“No.” Rose shakes her head. “Everything’s fine. There were… It was…” She’s unsure how much to explain. How much she can explain.

_Does it even matter anymore?_

“They’re gone,” she says. “There’s this space between dimensions. This… Void, it’s called. Nothing can live there. Me and… we, um…” She takes a deep breath and then lets it out slowly, trying to calm her thoughts. “Someone figured out how to send the Cybermen there.” She rests her elbow on her knee and examines her wrist. The movement is mostly automatic; when she realizes what she's doing, she brings her hands back down and clasps them together around her legs, hugging them to her chest. “But it wasn’t that simple. ‘Cause things would only get sucked into the Void if they’d travelled through it before. The Cybermen all had, ‘cause they’d moved from your world to mine. But I’d also gone through it before. ‘Cause of… Anyway, I nearly fell in. I would’ve done if Dad hadn’t jumped back and grabbed me.”

“So how come you can’t go back?”

“The walls between the universes were sealed after that. It was… for the best, you know, ‘cause we weren’t supposed to be able to cross dimensions like that. Both of our worlds would’ve been destroyed if the breach had been left open.”

 _So?_ she thinks, and a tiny laugh escapes her.

“And now?” Clara asks.

“I’m still trying.”

Clara nods like this simple statement is both understandable and entirely reasonable, and Rose feels a twinge of gratitude.

“And the man in the brown suit?”

“Still on the other side.”

“Was he…?” _Your soulmate?_

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” Clara says again. “That must be horrible.”

“I’ll get back,” Rose tells her. It’s nice, actually, talking about this now with someone new—someone who hasn’t heard it all before. She can feel her old hopes bubble up inside her, resolving themselves into a steely determination that shapes her next words. “I’m working on this project, at Torchwood. We call it the Dimension Cannon. When we get it up and running, it’ll be able to send me to any dimension. After that, s’just a matter of finding the right one.”

“How will you know you have the right one?” Clara asks. “What if you find a world that looks right, and that has the right person, only he’s not the same as the person you knew?”

Rose tilts her head back, looking past the roof of the gazebo to the sky. Her fingers find her wrist again and she can feel her pulse beneath the tattoo, life still coursing through her despite the dead letters.

“I’ll know.”

—

Clara should stay away from Rose before she brings the troubled girl more emotional drama, but she's already captivated by her.

How can one person contain so much hopelessness and hopefulness at the same time?

—

“Hey! Rose!” Mickey calls, putting down the phone. “You have a visitor downstairs.”

“What? Who?”

Rose isn’t expecting anyone.

“Some lady called Clara.”

—

“I brought you coffee,” Clara says, when Rose greets her with a confused smile. “When we talked the other day, it sounded like you were working a lot. I thought you might like a break.”

“Oh, I… Yeah, I do. And that’s really sweet of you.” Rose accepts the coffee, her smile warmer now. “Thank you.”

“Hope you don’t mind me barging in here. I know I wasn’t exactly invited. I just wanted to give you my number. You know, in case you ever want to… get coffee. Somewhere else. I enjoyed talking with you.”

“Really?” Rose gives a small, incredulous laugh. “I’m pretty sure I blubbered all over your nice suit. And, by the way—I’m really sorry about that. I wasn’t really at my best.”

“It’s okay. I was flattered.” 

“You’re a bit odd, Ms. Oswald,” Rose says with a grin. “Would you like to come upstairs and see the project?”

“I’d be honoured, Ms. Tyler.”

Clara grins back.

—

 _Okay_ , Clara thinks later, after listening to Rose babble on enthusiastically about her team’s innovative time-and-space invention. _Maybe the Universe does know a thing or two about my type._

Rose is kind. Gorgeous. Clever. Clara is positive this isn’t going to end well, but she’s also positive that she isn’t going to stay away. Don't they always say that good things are worth the pain and heartbreak they cause?

—

She’s so relieved when Rose calls her that she realizes she hadn’t expected her to.

“Rose!” Clara answers happily, and then, a little embarrassed, quickly tones it down a little. “How are you doing?”

“’M fine, thanks. I was just wonderin’ if you wanted to get that coffee. Or something else, you know… whatever. I could use… someone to… to talk to.”

She doesn’t sound fine at all. Clara frowns, worried.

“Of course. I’m just on my lunch break now, but I’ll call you back after my last class. Is that alright?”

“Yeah,” Rose agrees. “Talk to you later, then.”

—

“I don’t think I can stay for very long,” Rose says, sitting down across from Clara in the coffee shop she’d picked. It’s near Torchwood Tower: the same place Clara had stopped by to pick up coffee before.

“Oh?”

“I, uh… There’s been a breakthrough.” Rose nods at her own words. “In the project. I went through. Can you believe it?” She laughs a little, but it sounds more like she’s choking. Her hands are shaking around her paper cup, and Clara reaches out to still them with her own.

“What did you see? You don’t have to answer right away, if you can’t, or if you don’t want to.”

Rose nods again and takes a gulp of air, catching her breath.

“It was wrong,” she says finally. “He was there. He was… dead. Everything was wrong. How could it be so wrong, Clara? I did it! How could it be so _wrong_ when everything worked so well? I just don’t…”

“Shh,” Clara says, as calmly and as soothingly as she can manage. She sweeps Rose’s hair back from her face with two fingers and tucks the strands behind her ear. “You’ll find the right world. You have the means, now. It’ll take time, but every good thing does. I’m so sorry, though. It must have felt like losing him all over again.”

“Yeah.” Rose lifts her coffee to her lips with still-trembling fingers and takes a sip. “Sorry for freaking out on you again. You must think I’m a nutter.”

“‘Course I don’t,” Clara says. And then: “Do you want to talk about him?”

“I don’t know.” Rose is quiet as she thinks about it. “Yeah. A little. It’s just… he was unlike anyone I’d ever met. He could—he could travel in time and space. And I travelled with him. I saw so many beautiful things, and—terrible things, too, but it wasn’t about that. It was about the people. People throughout time and space standing up for what they believe in, and—and having hope that things would get better. He showed me that.”

“He sounds wonderful.”

Rose chuckles weakly. “Don’t tell him that. He’d get a big head.” Her smile fades as quickly as it had come. “I thought I’d start to miss him less, but it hasn’t gotten any easier.”

“I can’t imagine,” Clara admits.

“Have you—?” Rose asks, gesturing vaguely at Clara’s wrists.

“Oh,” Clara says, overturning them: clear, blank skin. “No. Not yet.”

“Maybe it’s better like that,” Rose says. “Would make things easier, yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” Clara agrees. “Definitely easier.”

—

Clara tries calling Rose a couple days later, but there’s no answer. She tries again a few days later, and a few days after that, but Rose never picks up. 

After three weeks, Clara stops by Torchwood again on her way home from work.

“I’m here to see Rose Tyler,” she tells the receptionist.

“We have no personnel by that name here.”

“What? I visited her last month. She works on the Dimension Cannon project.”

“We have no project by that name here. Is there anything I can help you with today? We have a gift shop just down the hall, if you’re looking for souvenirs.”

“I’m not—” Clara starts impatiently, and then gives up. She turns on her heel and storms out the door.

—

Days pass, and then more weeks. Clara thinks about dropping by the Tyler mansion, but decides that would be intrusive. Rose has been in the news once or twice since, spotted in a couple different places with her mother. She’s alive. That’s the important thing.

Clara misses her, but Rose isn’t hers to miss, so she makes herself ignore the growing hole in her chest.

_Damn this soulmate thing._

—

She stops bandaging the words after two months. It’s not bright enough to shine through her clothing, anyway: her paranoia is unnecessary.

No one notices it, and Clara tries unsuccessfully to forget about it. To forget about _her_.

As if she ever could. In a few short weeks, Rose Tyler had left a permanent mark on her heart.

—

Clara visits the monument for the victims of the Cybermen attacks, reaching up to trace her mother’s name in the cool stone.

“Hi, Mum. Sorry, I haven’t visited in a while. Things have been busy this year, what with school and all, but it’s almost summer now. Less homework to grade. So… I wanted to talk to you. ‘Cause… okay.” Clara sits down at the foot of the monument, crossing her legs and taking a deep breath. “You know how you and dad were soulmates? It sounded so ideal when I was little. You two always loved each other so much. You were meant to be, really. You guys knew it. Everyone could see it. And I believed it, too—until you died. If you’ve been watching out for us, you know that Dad’s a wreck. I can hardly speak to him anymore. Certainly not about you. So I stopped believing.

“I stopped believing until I met someone. The one I was supposed to meet. And I started to think… But I was wrong. The whole thing is… is _wrong_.” Clara is crying now, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

Good things hurt too much.

—

“Rose?” Jackie asks, knocking gently at her door. “Rose? Can I come in?”

When Rose doesn’t answer, Jackie pushes the door open and comes to sit on the side of Rose’s bed. Her daughter is wrapped up her blanket and looks very much like she hasn’t moved in hours.

“Rose, sweetheart. You need to get out and do something.”

Rose stares at the wall.

“I just can’t stand seeing you like this.”

“And I can’t stand feeling like this, but it’s not my fault the Cannon broke, is it?”

“Of course not,” Jackie says. “Budge over a bit, will you? I want to talk to you about something.”

Rose moves over so that Jackie can sit next to her, leaning against the headboard. Jackie takes Rose’s hand in hers and holds it up so their tattoos are pressed together. Jackie’s is black, too: she covers it up in public with makeup, large bracelets, or long sleeves.

“Look at me, Rose. I’m happy, right?”

“Sure,” Rose says. “Yeah. And I’m not. What are you getting at?”

“I lost my soulmate, and I’m happy. It’s possible, sweetheart. I promise.”

“‘Cause you found him again!”

“I did,” Jackie agrees, “but he’s not the same man.”

“Sure he is.”

“He isn’t,” Jackie says. “He looks the same. He has the same voice. But he’s not the same. He’s not the Pete I fell in love with back at home. Look at his life. That doesn’t happen by chance. He’s a different person. He’s made different choices. And the Jackie Tyler that lived here wasn’t me. I fell in love with him a second time, but he’s not the same man. If I hadn’t met this Pete, there was always a chance I would have met someone else. Fallen in love again. But I never did that by hanging about the estate.”

Rose looks at her mother.

“I know,” she says finally. “I know. But right now… it’s hard to believe it.”

Jackie wraps her arms around Rose as she starts to cry again, wishing there were something that she could do to make things better.

“What can I do, Mum?” Rose asks, face pressed into Jackie’s shoulder. “I can’t stand feeling this way.”

“Do what you love the most,” Jackie suggests. “Just because you’re stuck on one planet doesn’t mean there isn’t anywhere to go.”

—

After her last day of class, Clara almost trips over Rose on the way out the door.

“ _Rose?_ ”

Clara’s so surprised and delighted that she hugs her. She thinks she would have spun her in circles if she’d been taller. Rose laughs and hugs Clara back.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t called. Everything… it’s been hard.”

“Let’s walk,” Clara says, letting go and gesturing to the parking lot. “I was just on my way home. Do you want to come over?”

“Sure, alright,” Rose agrees.

—

“The Cannon failed,” Rose tells Clara, with the air of someone on the verge of breaking. “It broke. And it will cost too much to fix it, or to build it again. I was about to jump, but it just… fizzled out. Like it could only manage the one trip. I mean, there was no guarantee it would work at all, but what… what if that was him? What if he’s _actually_ dead?”

“You said that you’d know when it was really him,” Clara says, glancing over at Rose in the passenger seat. “Was it?”

“No,” Rose says, letting out a breath. “No, it wasn’t.”

—

“I was wondering something,” Rose says, leaning against the kitchen counter as Clara warms up a pot of soup. She’d offered to make them lunch, and Rose hadn’t argued. It’s nice, just spending time. Talking about this and that. Clara could do this forever.

“Yeah?” Clara asks. “Ask away.”

“Well,” Rose starts, “I was thinking… about travelling again. Here. On planes, or, or trains, or walking or whatever.”

“That’s a bit of a vague plan, but I like it.”

“Yeah. I haven’t really, you know… made the plan yet. ‘Cause I thought… it’s better with two, yeah?”

“Are you asking me if I want to come travelling with you?” Clara stops stirring and turns around.

“Only if you want to,” Rose says quickly. “I know we haven’t—”

“That sounds amazing,” Clara interrupts, grinning widely. “Really amazing. Oh, I’ve always wanted to travel!”

“Yeah?” Rose asks, looking relieved.

“I have this book,” Clara says. She turns the stove off and moves the soup pot to another burner. “I’ll show you.”

—

They make plans to meet at the train station: they’ll start their journey by travelling across Europe.

Clara can’t sleep the night before. It feels dishonest not to tell her, but she can’t think of a way to bring it up in conversation. ‘ _Hey, by the way, I’m in love with you and the Universe thinks you’re perfect for me even though you’re in love with someone else_ ’ is an awkward thing to reveal to someone in any circumstance.

She tosses and turns, but underneath all her anxiety, a current of excitement ripples through her.

No matter what happens, this will be something life-changing.

—

Clara doesn’t have to bring it up: Rose does.

“When I asked about your soulmate,” Rose says, as they wait to board the train, “and don’t get me wrong, I know you don’t have to tell me anything, but… You said you hadn’t met them yet. Whoever they are.”

Clara looks at her guardedly, but doesn’t say anything.

“It’s just… When you were cooking the other day, I noticed… on your hip. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Clara says. She’s already freaking internally. _Sorry what? Sorry you don’t like me back?_

“I’ve heard that hidden marks mean that the person… they already met someone else. How long have you—?”

“A few months,” Clara says.

“That must be rough,” Rose says sympathetically.

Clara frowns. “Wait. You didn’t see…?”

“What it says? No. I only saw a sliver of it. Why?”

Realization dawns on Rose’s face before Clara even pulls up the side of her shirt to reveal the letters.

‘ _Why would I be lonely?_ ’

“Oh,” she says.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t want to impose on you.”

“That’s probably for the better. I had a lot on my mind,” Rose says. She seems to be having trouble choosing her words.

“That’s what I thought.” Fighting the urge to run away, Clara smiles nervously. “Anyway! Now you know. We can, uh—we can talk about something else now, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine,” Rose says, and then, smiling back, she takes Clara’s hand. “I mean it, Clara. You know: my mum tells me this story sometimes, about meeting someone else after you lose your soulmate. ‘Cause it happened to her, but I figured—the Doctor is the only one I could be happy with, yeah? ‘S what I assumed for years. ‘Cept when I really thought about it—you were the one that made me believe that maybe it’s possible. You make me feel quiet and calm inside, even when my life is a mess. It’s like you understood me as soon as we first met. I never thought I’d feel that again. Just… don’t hide anything so big from me in the future, alright?”

Clara laughs, and swings their hands between them, their fingers interlocked. People rush past them in the busy station, but for a moment, Clara and Rose can’t see anyone else.

The call for the train comes over the loudspeaker.

“Are you ready?” Rose asks.

“I was born ready, Rose Tyler.”

Hand-in-hand, they head off towards something new.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. "Why would I be lonely?" is one of the first things the Doctor says to little Clara when he's investigating her timeline. This universe has no Doctor, so Clara's soulmate in this world is Rose - who has become the Doctor in her own right :)
> 
> 2\. I might write a sequel if there's any interest - let me know!
> 
> Thanks for reading! You can find me on Tumblr @ angelandfaith.


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